In November I traveled into London to visit the 'De/coding the Apocalypse' exhibition held at Somerset House. The exhibition was put together by visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder and explores contemporary creative visions inspired and based upon The Book of Revelation, "thus revelation seems to be an apocalyptic prophecy". By combining digital media and theological study the installation aims to "create new ways of looking at an ancient text and make it relevant for modern audiences."
As we entered the exhibition a long corridor with a number of doors on each side greeted us. There were five separate rooms you could enter, each with their own individual installation inside. The first room I entered was entitled 'playing the apocalypse', in this room were three screens displaying live video footage of the video game gears of war. "Many of the most popular, and indeed, the most violent video games are awash in explicitly religious themes and symbols". The Book of Revelation has influenced narratives of many imaginary worlds and the idea behind this room is that within war video games we often play to 'win' salvation for humanity, when we play these games we play the apocalypse.
Apocalypse Forever The Horse as Technology
The idea behind the second room 'revelation as a mirror' was to reflect the 'seeing' and visual nature of The Book of Revelation. Within this room were seven examples of artistic responses to the apocalypse displayed on the walls.
The third room 'apocalypse forever' was made up of walls covered in QR codes, when scanned these codes took the user to Google image searches based on the first verses of The Book of Revelation's 22 chapters. The aim of the room is to represent the 'decoding' of the apocalypse. "Today we inherit not only the text of the apocalypse but a long line of decodings".
The fourth and also my favourite room was titled 'the horse as technology', its aim was to represent cyborgs and technology. The rooms main focus was around 'the horse as a symbol of power', "with the help of bridle and bit, stirrup and spur they become an extension of the human body and will." Within the room there were a number of pieces all relating to horses, 3D models, photographs, scannings, QR codes and interactive computer screens that allowed the user rotate and manipulate a horses head. I found this room really engaging and the use of interactive digital technologies allowed me to explore further into the topic area.
Me using the virtual reality headset (Oculus Rift)!
The fifth and final room was called 'a new Jerusalem'. Outside the room was a brief introduction about the themes and ideas behind the installation:
"The work presented in this room asks the audience to contemplate why we should care about our present society and environment when we are promised that 'a new heaven and a new earth' (Rev 21.2) await us."
Inside the room the audience is welcomed to put on a virtual realilty headset and view a different world. The world the user sees when they put on the headset is a combination of old and new world Jerusalem, this is a subtle suggestion that 'the new world' is not an entirely unrecognisable place. I feel this installation is a really clever way of getting the theme of 'the new world' across to audiences in a modern and engaging way.
Overall my thoughts on the exhibition are greatly positive. The use of interactive and digital technologies was a very good way to interest and get the audience involved with a quite complex biblical text. I feel each interactive installation helped to break down the ideas and themes behind The Book of Revelation and allowed the audience to explore and learn. The use of technologies combined with the biblical text also suggests that we are heading towards an apocalypse ourselves, the vast growth of modern-day technologies may be very dangerous and could potentially cause unexpected consequences, such as another 'apocalypse'. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Somerset house and would definitely recommend the exhibition to others.
